A combination of awful defending and awful officiating have ruined any chance the Wanderers had of defeating Melbourne Victory tonight, as they lost 3-0 despite a huge domination of the midfield & possession.
25 minutes of early possession for the Wanderers ended with Victory opening the scoring against the run of play. Artiz Borda making dual mistakes in between another mistake from Dimas. Borda made a suicidal sideways pass to Dimas that he underhit, on the stretch the defensive midfielder had his own weak backpass intercepted by Fahid Ben Khalfallah, after Redmayne made a neat save, Borda had a complete airswung when he was under no pressure and should have cleared. Instead it sat nicely for Berisha, who fired a cross to Khalfallah for a tap-in from 5 yards.
The second half should have seen Western Sydney given the chance to equalise from the penalty spot. Jumpei Kusukami was cut down inside the penalty area by Jason Geria, the only person in the stadium to not realise it was a penalty was the referee, and he somehow decided with Geria getting no ball, and chopping down the attacker, that it was a Victory goal kick.
Victory were then handed a second goal with substitute Jai Ingham heading the ball onto his arm and into the goal past Redmayne. Once again, the referees did their best Stevie Wonder impression and wheeled away without so much as a hint of hesitation in awarded the illegal goal.
Of course, with the Wanderers trying desperately to get back into the match despite the officials deflating them at every decision, they were hit on the counter for a 3rd goal that ended the match as a contest. German import Max Beister came in for his debut, and not long after he had a tap in as no-one in the Wanderers backline bothered tracking his run from the right wing.
All in all, it was another night that promised much initially, but deflated through suicidal defending, and the same old refereeing standards that plague the A-League and prevent it from being taken seriously by the Australian sporting public.
The Wanderers face the FFA's golden child Melbourne City next week on Friday the 18th of November at Homebush Showground, so the officiating is unlikely to improve any time soon. It remains to be see if the defence will do any better.
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